Port Royal had passed for ever out of French hands, and to take its place the giant bastions of Louisbourg had risen on a ridge of rock which made one arm of Gabarus Bay. On the river Missaguash, which the French claimed to mark the northern boundary of English Acadia, stood Fort Beauséjour. Chambly, Sorel, and St. Thérèse, on the Richelieu, were Indian forts of old foundation; and as a further defence against the English, Beauharnois built Crown Point at the narrows of Lake Champlain. The stronghold of Carillon was situated a few miles beyond. On the Alleghany river, Forts Venango and Le Boeuf barred the westward growth of Pennsylvania; and Fort Duquesne, begun as an English fort by the Ohio Company, guarded the junction of the Alleghany and the Monongahela. Fort Niagara, near one end of Lake Ontario, and Fort Frontenac at the other, were also to figure in the closing stages of the conflict. The exploit of the Sieur de la Vérendrye, which marked this period, was perhaps the most picturesque achievement Quebec had witnessed since the days of La Salle. In the spring of 1731, La Vérendrye, with his three sons and a handful of adventurous _coureurs de bois_, set off from the trading post of Michillimackinac to take possession of the West. By a long succession of paddles and portages. La Vérendrye came to the Lake of the Woods. Then, threading his way through its myriad islands, he found and followed a wild stream which bore him down to Lake Winnipeg. From here he passed into the Red River, and at its junction with the Assiniboine built Fort Rouge. From this base the bold explorers made their way as far north as the forks of the Saskatchewan; and by 1743 the distant peaks of the Rocky Mountains had rewarded the vision of a younger La Vérendrye. To no avail: for this wide dominion was destined to pass to hands firmer to hold, if slower to acquire. [Illustration: The Earl of Chatham from the collection in the possession of Lord Bridport] CHAPTER XI THE BEGINNING OF THE END The growing power of England, on the sea, in America, and in India, was only equalled by the increasing jealousy of the Catholic nations of Europe, and especially of her ancient rival France. The question of the Austrian succession, in which these two conspicuous opposites stood for and against Maria Theresa, supplied a pretext for war; yet it hardly concealed the real purpose of each power to destroy the other; and the battles of Fontenoy, Nollwitz, and Dettingen, though fought in the heart of Europe, were as decisive for an Eastern and a Western empire as was the warfare on the frontiers of India, or the sullen conflict in the Ohio valley.